But those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:31 ESV)
Waiting may be the hardest thing God ever asks us to do. We can handle hard work. We can push through the pain. We can even deal with struggle, as long as we can see that something is happening. But waiting can feel like being stuck. Prayers go up, and silence comes back. The situation sits there, unchanged.
But the word behind “wait” in Isaiah 40:31 reframes everything. The Hebrew word is qavah (קָוָה), pronounced kah-VAH. It doesn’t mean sitting on your hands. At its root, qavah carries the image of a cord being stretched taut. Think of a rope under tension. It isn’t slack. It isn’t limp. It’s stretched between two points.
That’s what biblical waiting looks like. When we qavah, we are that cord, stretched between where we are right now and what God has promised. We feel the tension of that gap.
That changes how we see waiting. Biblical waiting is not inactivity. It’s not giving up. It’s not just killing time until something better comes along. Qavah is a hopeful expectation, waiting with tension, anticipation, and trust all at once. It expects God to act, even when nothing is visible yet.
Isaiah 40 was spoken to people who had been waiting a long time. They were weary, discouraged, and wondering if God had forgotten them. Into that exhaustion, God says, “Wait for me.” And then comes the promise: your strength will be renewed. Not all at once. Not always the way you pictured. But it comes.
We usually want God to remove the waiting. But often, God uses the waiting to help us to grow. In the stretching, He strengthens our trust. In the silence, He deepens our dependence. In the delay, He reshapes what we thought we needed in the first place.
And over time, something surprising happens: we begin to find strength not just after the waiting, but in the waiting.
We start to “mount up with wings like eagles,” not because our situation has changed, but because our perspective has. We learn to “run and not be weary” and “walk and not faint,” not because life is suddenly easy, but because we’re no longer trying to carry it alone.
If you are in a season of waiting right now, it doesn’t mean that God is absent. Every prayer you’ve whispered. Every moment you chose to trust God instead of worrying. Every choice you’ve made to keep holding on. All of that is qavah.
That is your faith, pulled taut between earth and heaven. God is on the other end of that rope. That is the blessing of qavah.
Prayer: Lord, waiting is hard. I confess that I often want quick answers and clear movement. Teach me what it means to truly qavah — to wait with hope, trust, and expectation. Help me to believe that You are working even when I can’t see it. Renew my strength as I wait. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Alan Smith
Reprinted with permission from Alan Smith’s Thought For the Day